Sadly, journalists like me rarely provide a coherent picture of what's happening in the local schools our readers care about most. We report successes and failures, debates and innovations, but the sum of our stories is usually no clearer than a running account of squabbles in the playground. Still, it's worth doing. The best new example is a project that unleashed several scholars on our nation's second largest city and culminated with this book: "When Schools Work: Pluralist Politics and Institutional Reform in Los Angeles." The author is Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. Participating in the research and writing were five graduate students: Melissa Ancheta, Malena Arcidiacono, Joonho Lee, Caitlin Kearns and Sarah Manchanda. Fuller summed it up this way: "The behemoth institution of L.A. Unified, written off as hapless and ineffectual, came alive with a pulse, a beating heart. Reading and math scores for Latino and white students proceeded to climb (more than one grade level) over the subsequent two decades, as gauged by a careful federal assessment of learning in L.A., finally leveling off in 2019. Other barometers of pupil progress climbed as well — enrollment in college-prep courses rose, student discipline incidents fell, and graduation rates steadily increased."

A new analysis of 1,610 pre-K sites in New York City finds classroom quality is lower in sites located in poor neighborhoods and in centers serving higher percentages of Black and Latino children. The study was led by University of California, Berkeley, sociologist Bruce Fuller, who last year participated in a study showing Latino children, particularly those in immigrant families, are increasingly less likely to attend elementary schools with white students. Fuller has also long questioned whether universal preschool models improve outcomes for children from poor families.

Latino children in California's public schools are significantly less likely to attend elementary schools with white children than in any other state, and the problem has grown throughout the U.S., according to a new study co-authored by education and public policy professor Bruce Fuller. The trend is very concerning, the researchers report, because "racially segregating students of color ... often corresponds with unfair financing of schools, regressive allocation of quality teachers and culturally limited curricula." On the bright side, and offering hope for solutions, the study found an opposite trend for all students from low-income families, who are now more likely to enter economically integrated schools. "There are many, many young Latino families who ... are becoming more and more educated," Professor Fuller says, "and that allows for movement into more economically-integrated communities. Now [these communities] might still be predominantly Latino, but at least we're achieving economic integration for many, many Latino kids. ... If we can get poor kids in the same classrooms as middle-class kids ... we're probably going to see stronger educational outcomes." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News. Other stories on this topic appeared in the Washington Post and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

Latino Children in the U.S. are significantly less likely to attend elementary schools with white children than they were a generation ago, according to a new study co-authored by education and public policy professor Bruce Fuller. The trend is especially true for children from immigrant families. In 1998, the researchers found, K-5 Latino children attended schools in which 40 percent of their classmates were white, but in 2015 that percentage had fallen as low as 5 percent in major urban school districts. On the other hand, the study found an opposite trend for all students from low-income families, who are now more likely to enter economically integrated schools. "There are some devices that I think are being deployed with some success that tend to counteract segregation," Professor Fuller says. These devices include magnet schools, dual-language immersion programs, and redrawing school boundaries to boost socioeconomic diversity. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News. Another story on this topic appeared in Education Dive.